Total pages in book: 23
Estimated words: 21859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 109(@200wpm)___ 87(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 109(@200wpm)___ 87(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
“No crown molding in the guest bath. I see you don’t mind cutting corners.”
Was this the only rug you found left by a dumpster?”
“You know nobody is going to mistake the color gray as cheerful.
“Of course your bed is the size of my entire apartment.”
“Is this indoor swimming pool up to code?”
“That’s my bathtub.” I lean against the doorframe of my bathroom and shake my head. God, if I wasn’t obsessed with her before now, I would be at the audacity she has to talk shit on my stuff. For some reason, I love it. “Any other observations?”
“Just that you have a lot of free time on your hands.”
“How can you tell?” This time when I smile I don’t try to hide it.
She pushes past me and opens my closet. “What kind of man organizes like this?”
“One who likes to be organized.”
“Your house is okay, I guess. I mean, if you have to live somewhere.” She waves her hand around and walks past me again.
Every time she does that, I want to reach out and grab her and pull her against my body. How does she not feel this tension between us? It’s so tight it’s like it’s going to snap at any moment, and I have to stand here and pretend it’s not driving me nuts.
“If you’re a slob, you can just say it,” I tease as I follow her out of my bedroom.
“I'm not admitting anything, but you should know that serial killers would be jealous of your setup.”
“Spent a lot of time with serial killers?”
“I’ve never met a true crime documentary I didn’t like.”
I can picture her curled up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn while the narrator describes a gruesome murder.
“And yet with all that knowledge, you still went to a second location with me. Tsk tsk, shorty.” She glares at me, but it’s adorable, and I use it as an excuse to touch her chin again.
An alert goes off on my phone, and I see someone’s at the gate.
“Have a hot date?” Sadie pretends to be causal about the question, but I see right through it.
“It’s your food. They had to send extra people to carry it all.”
“Nobody said kidnapping me would be cheap.”
“I’ll get the food, and we can eat in my office.” I go to walk out, and she calls after me.
“Your office? That wasn’t on the tour.”
“To the left. There’s a hidden door.”
I hear something about Bruce Wayne mumbled under her breath while I hit the button for the gate to open and let the driver in. After I’ve tipped him and gotten the bags, I come inside and swing by the kitchen to grab drinks.
By the time I’m finished, I find Sadie in the hallways on her hands and knees searching the baseboards for a way into my office.
“Not that I don't love the view, but it’s over here,” I say before I hit the discreet panel on the opposite wall, and the door next to me opens.
“Show-off.”
“Please, take your time.” I make a point to keep staring at her ass while she gets off the floor. Once she’s up, she raises her chin and walks by me in a huff. Once again, I follow her like a love-starved puppy.
She walks right over to my desk and starts opening drawers. I chuckle to myself as I go over to the table and place everything on it. While I set out the food, she snoops, and I’ve come to realize she likes being nosy.
“You’re low on Post-its,” is all she says when she’s had enough and takes a seat on the couch next to the food.
“Next time I’ll give you my password so you can order them for me.”
“Unless you’re willing to pay a secretary an engineer's salary, no thanks.”
“I would if she had your sparkling personality.” That earns me a little smile as she reaches for one of the Chinese containers and opens it.
“All right, we’re here. Now I want to see the goods.”
“Normally I don’t do that on the first date.”
She rolls her eyes as she digs her chopsticks into the noodles. “Sure you don’t, and I’m talking about my dad.”
“I know,” I say, reaching for my laptop. “But I’ve got a few questions first.”
“Okay?” she answers like a question, and I can see her walls going up.
“First, how much do you know about how your parents met?”
Chapter Seven
SADIE
I shove more noodles into my mouth, trying to recall how they met. When I think about it, I’m not sure I asked or if they ever told me the story. It wasn’t as if we sat around the dining room table and my parents would gush about how they fell in love. I must have assumed how they met, because I can’t recall specifics.
In my mind, my mom was out one night and saw a man with some money that she could sink her claws into. She lured him in and got pregnant, knowing my dad would stick around and even marry her. My dad always does what he believes is right; it’s how my mom was able to control him. I hate how she used his kindness against him.